I recall seeing a Tesla solution to this, well a concept any way, a couple of years ago. It was a system where you "lease" the car's battery pack. You never have to charge it. Simply roll into a designated area, stop. The ground opens up, and robotics remove the batter pack and replace it with a fully charged one. They claimed the swap would take about as long as filling up a car at a regular gas station. Not certain to the cost of digging such a huge underground facility, or the maintenance of said facility. But, if simple, above ground, supercharge stations are going to cost Porsche dealers $300,000 to $400,000, to move that underground would probably be millions. Pretty cool concept, though.

I still think that the ideal use of EV's is as short route commuter cars where you're not going to drive much more than 150 miles round trip per day.

It's going to take a lot of break-throughs to make them practical for longer trips.

So under ideal conditions, some of the Tesla models and the new all electric Porsche can go about 300 miles on a full charge.

As was pointed out in a previous post, some Tesla owners say that in Winter, the range is reduced by some 40 - 50%. That makes a lot of sense, since the cold will reduce the batteries capacity and also you'll use more electricity for heating, lights, bun warmers, infotainment systems to stay up on your social media, etc.

So in Winter, that full range drops to 180 miles. (using the more optimistic 40% range reduction). So on a trip, you're not going to find charging stations every 180 miles, so you'll probably start looking for a recharge station after about 120 miles of driving (since you don't want to run out of juice on the Interstate in Winter). So you've gone 120 miles and you start watching for charge stations, spend 20 minutes to recharge the battery to 80% (according to Porsche claims with their new system). You now have a range of about 145 miles (80% of 180 miles). So from here on, you're going to have about a 90 mile range between quick charges. That's going to make a long trip much longer. As the article suggests, like comparing a cross country flight in a DC3 with 3 stops compared to a non-stop flight in a 747.

I would imagine that during summer in southern states like Texas, Florida, Arizona, just to name a few, the range reduction will likely be fairly significant also, with the use of A/C coming completely at the expense of the battery range.

The other thing is to consider if the hydro grid is set to handle all those cars being changed overnight..

Pedro Bonilla
1998 Boxster 986 - 296,000+ miles: http://www.PedrosGarage.comPCA National Club Racing Scrutineer - PCA National HPDE Instructor - PCA Technical Committee (Boxster/Cayman)
Racecar spelled backwards is Racecar
"Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting" ... Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney in "LeMans"
"If you wait, all that happens is that you get older"... Mario Andretti
"Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose" ... Ayrton Senna

I'm thinking about putting a deposit down on a EV. 180 miles in the time it takes me to make a pit stop is fine with me. 95% of my trips can be done easily with the 260 mile mid-range Model 3. Not cheap. But once you have driven one, you understand it's fun factor. And it is fun. Beats most Boxsters off the line with max torque at 1 RPM. Handling excellent. Will require me to run a new circuit for home changing. Why buy a EV? Mostly for the unusual experience. There is only one in my town so far. Not so much for the green factor though some of that.

There is a anti-EV campaign going on with articles similar to this funded by the fossil fuel interests. Cum grano salis.

I got a Chevy Volt with only 50-60 miles of EV range, but the daily driving is almost always on battery. The fun factor is high - full torque at once... And yes, we ARE getting into real trouble with CO2 emissions.

... would like to sponsor PedrosBoard.There is an opening!Happy Boxstering,Pedro

Pedro Bonilla
1998 Boxster 986 - 296,000+ miles: http://www.PedrosGarage.comPCA National Club Racing Scrutineer - PCA National HPDE Instructor - PCA Technical Committee (Boxster/Cayman)
Racecar spelled backwards is Racecar
"Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting" ... Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney in "LeMans"
"If you wait, all that happens is that you get older"... Mario Andretti
"Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose" ... Ayrton Senna

Quotemikefocke, '01S Sanford, NC
in that most are owned as a second car I'd wager.

I'm thinking about putting a deposit down on a EV. 180 miles in the time it takes me to make a pit stop is fine with me. 95% of my trips can be done easily with the 260 mile mid-range Model 3. Not cheap. But once you have driven one, you understand it's fun factor. And it is fun. Beats most Boxsters off the line with max torque at 1 RPM. Handling excellent. Will require me to run a new circuit for home changing. Why buy a EV? Mostly for the unusual experience. There is only one in my town so far. Not so much for the green factor though some of that.

There is a anti-EV campaign going on with articles similar to this funded by the fossil fuel interests. Cum grano salis.

Co-worker put a deposit down on a Model 3 when Tesla first started taking deposits. Finally went to look at one. 'course, the base lowest priced model was not being offered. Long story short she decided to not buy the 3 and instead bought a Lexus hybrid.

Co-worker did ask for the "survey" regarding her house and what it take to accommodate a charger. The person showed up but spent the entire time pushing solar panels. Said she'd need at least "7" for the car but suggested -- strongly -- she get more. Estimated cost for nearly 20 panels came to around $20,000.

Another co-worker bought (or leased) a Chevy Bolt. He had a BMW i3 before. Loves the Bolt. Plenty of range, about on par with the Tesla model 3. He got a charger installed for around $500. He got a "universal charger" which I guess he can unplug and toss in the trunk and take it with him and use it connected to another charger to charge his car.

However, one of the fantastic things about all-electric cars is that they are super simple. There's no transmission, oil, warmup time, break-in period, tuneups, filters, fluids, and very few moving parts. The brakes last almost forever so the only real wear items are the suspension-related components. By the time the battery needs to be replaced, battery tech will be much better and cheaper.

I opted for the Chevy Volt. You are right - it is not as simple as all electric, but since the engine merely drives a generator, and the car is always propelled with an electric motor, there is no conventional transmission. I am not sure how other hybrids work, since this is my first.

I had a deposit in on the Tesla 3 on Day 2, but cancelled it when the delay was obvious, and I realized that I would be taking more 400 mile trips in the upcoming years, but that most of our driving would be well within the 50 - 60 mile battery range on the Volt. I am waiting to see just what a Taycan is like!

Every time I go to configure it, Elon has moved the models available or the price. I really want the Model Y, the SUV version of the Model 3. Maybe available a year from now. Not sure how long we are going to be in this house which makes the charger investment problematic.

is a nice car but it is complicated. And that means that it's harder to design, build, and maintain. GM isn't doing very well and it needs to streamline operations and cut costs. It makes perfect sense for them to cut the Volt. EVs have limitations but those limitations are melting away with the tech advancing so quickly.

There is a real market for electric vehicle. Even after EV tax incentives the Teslas are much more expensive than equivalent gas cars yet they have been at the top of sales charts.

You are 100% wrong. We have a 2015 Volt and it is mechanically much simpler than a regular car. There is no gear box, the engine is only connected to an electric motor/generator and has its revs controlled by a computer, not a throttle. The gas engine only turns on when you are out of electric range or if you manually decide to hold the battery charge. Braking is mainly regenerative, so very little brake pad and disk wear. The bottom line is a car where the only regular service is tire rotation. The car will tell you when you need to change the oil and its dependent on how often the gas engine is used.

Because it is so simple and there are so few wear items it will last for a long, long time and require very little $ for maintenance.

A) It was written in 2012 and he says the gas engine also goes to the wheels through the transmission, not correct. He uses lines of code to measure code complexity, a bogus and incorrect measurement.C) He thinks an inverter is complex, not trueI could go on,

Also note that part of my comment about the complexity of the car is that gas engines are inherently complicated, especially compared to a pure electric car.

And please lighten up with your insulting language. The person who wrote the article is summarizing results produced by another company. His summary is accurate. They go into lots of detail about the complexity of the car and how it compares to other cars in the report.

As mentioned above, I have a 2018 Volt, and I like it a lot. But I think that that GM is realizing is that even plug-in hybrids will not be in the vehicle mix for very long. It is not a car with a long future. When Porsche comes out with a charging system that can put 700 miles per hour into batteries, will the rest of the manufacturers stay very far behind? The future is all electric, and GM knows it. The future also is in autonomous, and GM does not want to let Tesla, Google, and the others grab all that space.